Quantum Entanglement
by Fredrica
Summary: Emma Crossley-Biggs, a PhD student from the Arts department, is sent as a guinea pig to search for the origins of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in a world-first quantum entanglement experiment. Trudy van der Hoeff, a PhD student in physics soon finds herself with more than a supporting role.
1. Art in science

**I'm currently working on proofing _Sweet_ _Torment_ and ****_The Lectrice_ f****or publication. I'm not sure which of my other plot ideas to take forward. I thought _Go_ _Down Red Roses_ would be a lot more popular than it is, and as for _Cinder_ _Lizzy_, I just wrote it as a piece of fluff and it has turned out to be more favourited than any of my other stories!**

**Currently, I have two ideas, one is a time-travel story called _Quantum_ _Entanglement_. The other is a Medieval version called _Blood and Iron_. I'll post the stubs of both in the next few weeks and take the one readers are most interested in forward.**

**Here is the beginning of _Quantum Entanglement_. As usual, I would love to hear your ideas for the chapter titles.**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"That's it!" Trudy exclaimed as she burst through the door of the laboratory and threw her gym bag onto a chair. "I'm not dating another physicist!"

The only other occupant of the room filled with shiny stainless steel equipment paused briefly with his right hand above the return key of his keyboard and then hit it gracefully, like Liberace.

"OK," replied Michael, pushing his wheelchair back from the desk and twisting it around to face her. "I'm game. Why are you not dating another physicist?"

"Because they're delta functions!" replied Trudy dramatically.

Michael thought about it for a moment before conceding defeat. "I'm sorry, you're going to have to explain that one."

"A Dirac delta function! Fourier transforms?"

Michael still shook his head, failing to grasp her meaning. He had, of course, heard of Fourier series—possibly in a second year engineering subject years ago—as a way of representing any wave function as a series of sinusoids. But as for Dirac delta functions, well, he couldn't recall that anyone had mentioned them at all...

"A Dirac delta function is infinity at one point and zero everywhere else!" exclaimed Trudy, collapsing onto her chair.

Michael smiled in understanding. "I gather your movie date with Brett Fidler didn't work out?"

"Too right! The lights went out 20 minutes into the movie when the substation next to the cinema failed. A few couples around us started making out. Brett invited me round to his share house for coffee instead... and then sang to his Gilbert and Sullivan collection, for _two_ hours. Finally, one of his flatmates came home, and I managed to escape."

"Well, that was very polite of you," said Michael, a little surprised Trudy had been so diplomatic. "Operetta, heh? No kissing?"

"_No_ kissing. What a waste! The best looking guy in the physics department, and he only cares about string theory and Gilbert and Sullivan!"

"Definitely a delta function," agreed Michael. "But you're a little late—lab meeting finished half-an-hour ago."

"I had to go to the gym to prevent myself getting depressed! Trust me, I wouldn't have been able to work efficiently today if I didn't! Did I miss anything?"

"Kind of. They announced the BSD grants early."

"And?" said Trudy, excitedly. The lab had been waiting on funding to come through so they could purchase another superconducting magnet.

"Prof missed out."

"What!" exclaimed Trudy. "You're pulling my leg, right?"

"Nope."

"But he has two _Nature_ papers!"

"_Not_ in the last five years," said Michael. "The government decided to use $200 million of the research budget on the new science education initiative—apparently we don't have enough students studying STEM.* That's one third of the research budget, so only the top 5% of projects were funded, and Prof didn't make the cut."

"My God! How is he going to pay Nima and Christian?" asked Trudy, thinking of the two postdocs whose wages were dependent on BSD funding.

"Their contracts won't be renewed at the end of December. They've got less than two months to find another job, along with all the other postdocs who just failed to get their funding renewed. I guess that's why the government decided to announce the grants early, so that all the unemployed scientists have a little more time to find new jobs before Christmas. Wasn't that kind of them?"

"So they're investing $200 million in training tomorrow's scientists so they can be unemployed?" said Trudy, collapsing against the desk. "How ironic! Now I really _am_ depressed!"

"Looks like it's just you and me kid. Unless..."

"Unless?"

"Unless we collaborate with the Arts department."

"What's so bad about that?"

"They're interested in Temporal Quantum Entanglement."

"Time travel, heh? Well, I suppose that was a no-brainer. I didn't imagine they were going to be interested in pre-fusion reactions. Is it someone in the history department?"

"Literature," replied Michael. "They're studying Jane Austen."

"Who's Jane Austen?"

"Good grief, Trudy!" exclaimed Michael, rolling his eyes; "Only one of the most famous novelists in English literature. What did you study in high school?"

"Emily Bronte and Shakespeare."

"Well, I suppose that's a start. Do you recall the name of the book Emily Bronte wrote?"

"Sure, it was '_Wuthering Heights_' and the main characters were Heathcliff and Cathy. I was kind of in love with Heathcliff until the dog incident."

"Ah, yes," replied Michael, "I suppose that hanging lapdogs does not reflect well on one's character. Have you not heard of Fitzwilliam Darcy?"

"No, he sounds like an investment banker."

Michael laughed. "Not too far off. He's the rich guy in Jane Austen's most famous novel '_Pride and Prejudice_'. It's been made into a movie several times, most recently with Kiera Knightly."

"OK, I know her. She was in '_Pirates of the __Caribbean__'_."

"Right, I guess that's kind of a period movie too, although when Jane Austen's novels were written, they were contemporary."

"So you're into period movies?" asked Trudy. "I wouldn't have guessed it."

"No, it's my wife who is the big Jane Austen fan. But I get major brownie points for sitting on the sofa with her while she watches the adaptations."

"Cute, but I thought Prof said he didn't want to have anything to do with those time travel experiments. Doesn't he have ethical objections?"

"I'm afraid those went out the window when he missed out on funding. Without that new magnet we won't be doing any novel science, so no chance of another _Nature_ paper and little likelihood of getting funding the next year. It's a downward spiral from there."

"Right."

"He's gone over to the history department to talk to this potential collaborator, but he needs you to do some calculations—to estimate how much energy we need to generate to do this sort of time skip. Here is the 4-vector he's interested in," Michael said, handing over a manilla folder with a yellow Post-it note on the cover.

"Oh, great!" said Trudy, glancing at the row of numbers on the note. "Just a back of the envelope calculation, heh? I haven't got the least idea what's involved!"

"Prof also left you the two best papers from _Phys_ _Rev_ _Letters_," said Michael. "They're inside the folder."

Trudy opened the folder and quickly scanned the papers. "String theory! I knew there was a good reason I didn't tell Brett Fidler to get stuffed last night. I'm going to have to pick his brain."

"Think you can do it then?" Michael asked.

"Should be able to," Trudy said, flipping over the pages to get to the Methods sections. "I'm just not sure how long it's going to take. I'll need to use quite a lot to CPU time. Lucky Prof got a large quota this quarter."

"Well, you applied for it," commented Michael in bemusement.

"Yes!" agreed Trudy. "But they gave it to Professor David Gellings, not Trudy van der Hoff. The quantum chemists were spitting chips*—someone from the physics department using _their_ supercomputer!"

And with that she was off down the corridor.

Michael finished dealing with his email and then wheeled himself back into the lab where he was designing a new circuit board using the CAD* software.

An hour later, Professor David Gellings walked into the lab.

"Did Trudy turn up?" he asked Michael.

"Yes, she's gone off to discuss your equations with Brett Fidler, prior to starting the calculations."

"Good. Tell her to let me know as soon as she's got an estimate."

* * *

Three days later, Trudy still hadn't arrived at her boss's office and he went off in search of her. He found her asleep under her desk in her gym clothes. She woke when he walked through the door.

"Trudy, why are you sleeping under your desk? Have you been evicted?"

"No, Prof," said Trudy, crawling out and standing up, "but I only finished setting up the calculations at 1am, and it's not safe to walk across campus at that time."

"You slept the rest of the night under your desk?" he said, looking at the hard linoleum floor. "I'm surprised security didn't throw you out."

"If I pull my chair in to the desk, they can't see me from the hall, and they generally don't bother to unlock the door."

"You must be aching all over!"

"I sleep on a rug on the bare boards of my flat. My kung fu instructor says it keeps you fit."

"Right...," said Professor Gellings, looking slightly dubious. "Well, how are the calculations going?"

"Well, I've parallelised it, and I had 16 cores last night," Trudy said, waking the screen with a tap of the keyboard. "But, I've been niced* down to 3 cores now—those quantum chemists have started running their jobs. Probably another 48 hours to finish the raw calculations, then I've got to integrate the data. Provided I haven't made an error... 3 days."

"And if you've made an error?"

"Rinse cycle: repeat. Another 3 days, every time I make a correction."

"Sounds like some heavy number crunching. I thought one of the Phys Rev Letters papers from the Los Alamos laboratory contained an empirical equation?"

"That was only relevant to the specific instance they used as an example for their World War II research. There was some lucky approximation that allowed them to simplify the equation for that 4-vector. They were just showing off. I had to do _de novo_ calculations. The energy required is mostly dependent on the geographical locations of the beginning and end points in the space-time continuum relative to the earth's core."

"Are you saying you need to know the orientation of the earth's core 200 years ago?"

"Yes."

"How on earth did you estimate that?"

"I got the data from Geosciences Australia. There's this Greek guy there who was really helpful. We've exchanged a few emails now."

"Oh, OK. So hopefully 3 days?"

"Yes, Prof."

* * *

Three days later Trudy knocked on her supervisor's door in the late afternoon. After letting herself in following his summons, she waited patiently while he finished his phone call.

"Good Lord!" he said, after he'd set the receiver in its cradle. "That was the university's ethics advisor. We have to fill out a 44-page form to get approval for this! Hopefully I can get the Arts people to do it. I can't cope with filling out my tax return! How did the calculations go?"

"I think we need three more magnets."

"You're joking!"

"No."

"My God. They're $100k each. Are you sure we need three?"

"I'm running the Los Alamos example using my code as a check. That should finish tomorrow."

David Gellings sighed. "OK, well I guess I'll email Professor Braithwaite and line up another meeting for the end of the week if she wants to go forward. This may upset the applecart. I told her we would probably need a single additional magnet based on the Los Alamos work."

"It gets a lot more expensive the further you go back in time, and it's not linear," said Trudy. "Plus there's a significant locational difference which is only partly offset by the core drift."

"The MIT people seemed to think we would be pretty close to the golden jump point here in Sydney. Where is it exactly situated?"

"For the date you specified—in the middle of the desert, around Broken Hill."

"Right. Well, I guess we are closer than MIT or Los Alamos," sighed Professor Gellings, picking up his coffee cup and trying to recall if it was his fourth or fifth for that day. "Let me know as soon as you can confirm your estimate."

* * *

Trudy accompanied her supervisor to the meeting on the next Friday, wearing the only piece of smart casual wear she possessed—a dress she had purchased for her sister's wedding and worn on her only date with Brett Fidler. Professor Gellings had told her to 'dress up'. He was wearing his standard crisp white shirt and grey trousers but had added his Sydney Grammar tie, which he kept in his desk drawer for special occasions. A straw boater would have completed the ensemble of an overgrown schoolboy, but Gellings had sufficient gravitas by way of height to escape the comparison.

The meeting room was in one of the gloriously gothic buildings on the main quadrangle that formed the original part of the university. Trudy looked up at the vaulted ceiling in wonder as Professor Gellings led the way up the stone staircase to the second floor.

"Pretty special, hey?" commented the professor. "The ceiling is modelled on the chapel of King's College, Cambridge."

An extremely well dressed woman wearing pearls was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. She looked like she might be a politician. "It's a fan vault," she added as they reached the landing. "Hello, Trudy," she said, holding out her hand. "It's nice to finally meet you. I'm Professor Braithwaite."

"Hello," said Trudy, returning the handshake, unable to keep from feeling she was woefully underdressed, despite her best efforts.

Professor Braithwaite smiled tightly. "Well, the meeting room's down this way," she announced, clacking off down the hall in a pair of red court shoes with high but sturdy heels.

After following Professor Braithwaite down a wainscotted hall with a polished granite floor, the meeting room turned out to be rather a disappointment—it had beautiful gothic windows but was painted stark white and filled with the same generic steel and plastic furniture that inhabited modern classrooms. Trudy could not help a small, deflated 'oh!' from escaping her lips.

"What's the matter?" asked Professor Gellings. "Have you forgotten something?"

"Oh, no! I've got the USB stick," said Trudy, blushing. "I just expected the room to be like the rest of the building—like Harry Potter—and it's just the same as the Maths Department."

Professor Braithwaite gave a forced laugh. The Maths department was housed in the Carslaw building, generally agreed to be a hideous piece of post-war architecture. "You have our dear departed leader to thank for this—the aesthetically challenged Dean Thomas. He thought we needed to modernise. Thankfully they ripped out the suspended ceiling after he retired, but there weren't enough funds to restore the classroom to its former beauty. We live in hope. I heard that one of the other lecturers was so disgusted by the dean's actions, he asked the builders to save all the original interiors that were ripped out. I believe they're stored in the basement somewhere."

Professor Braithwaite led the way to a portable projector sitting on a table and looked round in perplexity. "Emma was supposed to set up in here. I'm not sure where she has gone."

She toggled the power switch on the projector. Nothing happened. She frowned and checked the the power cord was plugged in, then toggled the power switch again with no better result than before.

"Perhaps a fuse?" Professor Braithwaite mused, clearly expecting the physics professor in the room to be handy with electrics.

Some footsteps in the hallway announced a newcomer of about Trudy's age. She was wearing Prada jeans with military style boots that Trudy immediately envied, but had teemed them with an expensive looking roll-neck top with sheer panels and a string of pearls, much like Professor Braithwaite's. Her makeup was immaculate, including a shade of nude lipstick that matched her top.

"I'm sorry, Judith," said the girl. "There's no power in here. The caretaker says they had to isolate this room and a couple of the other classrooms because they keep tripping the 'RCD', whatever that is."

"Residual Current Device," said Trudy and Professor Gellings in unison.

"You must have a short," added Professor Gellings.

"Typical," said Professor Braithwaite, rolling her eyes. "The electrics in the rest of the building, which were done in the 1920s, work fine, while those in the 1980s renovation fail. I guess we'll have to revert back to my office, Emma. It will be a little crowded, but at least the electricity works."

Emma set down the laptop she was carrying to unplug the projector but when she tried to pick up both objects, Trudy came to her rescue and offered to take the projector.

Professor Braithwaite's office lived up to Trudy's expectations. It had gothic windows and built-in furniture in dark wood to match. But the professor had clearly added her own touches with rows of custom-bound books, tasteful modern art, and a Turkish carpet.

"Oh!" breathed Trudy. "This is more like it!"

"I'm jealous of the Turkish carpet!" said Professor Gellings _sotto voce_.

The ladies in the room all gave a polite titter at his pleasantry as they arranged the room and set up the projector. At Professor Braithwaite's request, Professor Gellings removed a painting from the wall so they could use it as a projection surface.

"Well, after that little hiccup," announced Professor Braithwaite, "let me start off by formally introducing my PhD student, Emma Crossley-Biggs. Emma graduated in Arts with majors in English Literature and French, and a minor in Semiotics. She did her Honours project with me last year on 'Wicked Men in Austen' and received first class honours and the university medal for her work. She will be doing the field work for this project.

"David, perhaps you could briefly introduce Trudy, before we get Emma to explain the project?" asked Professor Braithwaite.

"Right, fine," said Gellings. "Well... Trudy comes from Tamworth. She studied Physics and Pure Maths and did her Honours project with Fred Morecombe in Condensed Matter Physics—also first class—before deciding to join us in Plasma Physics for her PhD. She spent last year doing numerical calculations for pre-fusion dynamics before she started the preliminary calculations for the proposed temporal quantum entanglement experiment."

There were nods and smiles all round before Professor Braithwaite indicated that Emma should start her PowerPoint presentation.

Emma woke the sleeping laptop and focussed the projector.

"Well, as you know, Jane Austen is a famous English novelist who was an acute observer of life in the upper classes, two hundred years ago. She published several novels of a type we would describe as 'romances' and invented the first person impersonal. Her use of irony, along with her realism and humour earned her critical acclaim.

"Unfortunately her wit may also have robbed us of the rich treasure of her correspondence—an invaluable aid in studying her as an author. During her lifetime, Austen may have written as many as 3,000 letters, but until recently only 161 were thought to have survived. Most were written to her sister Cassandra, who subsequently consigned many to the flames and excised portions of those she kept because she believed their content too forthright.

"In 2018, an English antiques dealer found a trove of old letters at an estate auction, some of which he believed might have been penned by Austen. Although they were initially decried as forgeries when the story was first published in the British newspaper _The Telegraph_, subsequent investigation has supported their authenticity.

"As you know, Professor Braithwaite did her PhD on Austen at Oxford and is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Austen in the world. She was one of a panel of experts convened to investigate the authenticity of the letters written to 'Fanny'—now believed to be Fanny Bentham, a heiress whom Jane met when Fanny visited her relatives near Steventon. Both ladies were still in their teens at the time. They seemed to correspond regularly for twelve months. All Fanny's letters to Jane were lost, but Jane's letters were found intact in a small box, tied with red ribbon. Fanny Bentham is believed to have died of the influenza in 1796.

"Of particular interest is a single reference to a Mr Darcy and a Mr B—ley—the latter name obliterated—suggesting that, rather than being entirely figments of Jane Austen's imagination, she may have drawn their characters from a chance meeting with these gentlemen, likely in the presence of Fanny Bentham. This has fuelled enormous interest amongst the Jane Austen community— scholars and fans alike. Several credible attempts to identify the pair have been suggested but proof remains elusive.

"In January 2019, after an article on temporal quantum entanglement was published in _Scientific American_, members of a chapter of JASNA attended a public lecture given by MIT professor Brian Buckstead at a US Biophysical Society meeting. JASNA member Betty Campbell asked Professor Buckstead if temporal quantum entanglement enabled time travel, and whether it could be used to study history. Professor Buckstead said that while 'time travel' had been proved to be possible, the energetic cost was high. Furthermore there were serious ethical issues to be considered. Physicists were in disagreement as to whether temporal quantum entanglement permanently perturbed the space-time continuum.

"He did reveal however that he had just reviewed a paper describing a successful quantum entanglement experiment, which was about to be published in _Nature_.

"After several years of animal experiments, the US military has succeeded in sending an observer back to determine the fate of five TBM Avenger Torpedo bombers, known as Flight 19, which disappeared on December 5, 1945. As previously suspected, the planes temporarily lost situational awareness and were too low on fuel to make landfall. The observer posed as a member of the crew and was successfully extracted by means of a bidirectional signalling system before the planes plunged into the sea. The location was recorded and wrecks of the planes successfully located in 'real' time ie modern time. The remains of the airmen have subsequently been repatriated and interred with full military honours.

"Subsequent to the meeting, JASNA made further enquiries with Professor Buckstead about the possibility of using the method to study Jane Austen. The mystery of the Bentham letters was immediately chosen as a suitable target for further investigation. After extensive calculations, it was discovered there is a significant locational cost to 4-vector translation. Work by Professor Buckstead's group revealed that the both the modern 'golden jump point' and the 'golden extraction point' for the TBM experiment were located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A spokesperson for the Los Alamos group confirmed the TBM experiment was specifically chosen from a shortlist of incidents because a US military research ship could be positioned near both these locations—information that had been classified up to that point.

"Further calculations by Professor Buckstead's group indicated an even higher locational cost for the Austen experiment, jumping from the United States to Regency England. He suggested that a lab in Sydney, Australia was far better situated to conduct the experiment, at which point JASNA contacted Professor Braithwaite.

"Since then multiple successful quantum entanglement experiments have been conducted at several key laboratories around the world with the correct equipment.

"Quantum entanglement is proving an invaluable tool for the study of history," Emma finished with a flourish.

"Excellent summary, Emma!" praised Professor Braithwaite. "Now, Trudy, David tells me you have some good news about the feasibility of the project?"

Trudy wasn't sure how the need for three magnets instead of one translated into good news, but she dutifully plugged in her USB stick and ran through her calculations, explaining the influence of the earth's core in the drift of the golden jump point over time to any earlier 4-vector. She then explained how she had calculated the golden jump point for the specified 4-vector in Regency England to be located just outside Broken Hill.

"So that's near the border between New South Wales and Adelaide, isn't it?" asked Emma. "Perhaps the University of Adelaide or ANU would be closer?"

"Well, the facility at ANU is currently in mothballs while they search for a new professor following Tim Blakeley's unexpected passing," explained Professor Gellings. "They've made two appointments so far who haven't made it as far as our shores. Quantum entanglement have made fusion laboratories a very hot area—no pun intended. Apparently Australian professorial wages can't compete with the likes of Stanford and Cornell."

"And what of Adelaide?" asked Professor Braithwaite.

"That's Jim Connor," explained Professor Gellings.

"Oh!" replied Professor Braithwaite. "He of the 'not over my dead body'?"

Professor Gellings nodded, having the grace to look slightly abashed—for that had also been his stance until recently, if more politely expressed.

"Well, sorry for the interruption, Trudy," apologised Professor Braithwaite, attempting to get things moving again.

"I've only got one more slide," said Trudy, advancing the PowerPoint presentation. "Three more magnets are required to generate a sufficient neutrino flux to enable CPT* violation over a cabinet of sufficient size to house a human body in a crouch position."

"Professor Braithwaite tells me you do yoga, Emma," joked Professor Gellings.

Emma looked slightly pale under her make-up. "And are the neutrinos confined to the exterior of the cabinet?" she asked. "They don't go through the traveller?"

"Of course, they go through the traveller," replied Trudy, a little surprised. "Otherwise you wouldn't go anywhere."

"Neutrinos from the sun pass through us every day, Emma," explained Professor Gellings. "They don't interact much with ordinary matter."

"And how is transport effected from the other end?" asked Professor Braithwaite, "—where there is no cabinet?"

"That is done by means of the bidirectional signalling device," explained Professor Gellings. "You are essentially sucked back into the cabinet once we tool up the neutrino flux again on this end."

"The BID allows us to track you while you're in the past," added Trudy. "We pulse the neutrino flux once a minute and automatically readjust the historical 4-vector accordingly. You are generally pulled back after the allotted time, but we can pull you back in an emergency, given about two minutes notice. You just activate the BID on your end; we receive the message within the next polling sequence; and then it takes us just over a minute to tool up the full neutrino flux on the cabinet."

"Two minutes!" gasped Emma. "So you can't save me if I'm about to be shot?"

"The most likely causes of death in 18th Century England were by various diseases or drowning," reminded Professor Braithwaite. "Two minutes will be sufficient for any of those. Just be sure not to get into any carriages with John Thorpe!" she added lightheartedly.

Emma tittered appropriately but Trudy looked bemused. Emma whispered an explanation of the character in _Northanger Abbey_ in Trudy's ear.

"Oh!" said Trudy. "So John Thorpe was the regency equivalent of a petrol head?"

"Exactly!" laughed Professor Braithwaite. "Now, back to the magnets. I received some good news this morning that even you don't know, David. As you were aware, as of three weeks ago, JASNA had raised the money to cover one magnet and the salary of one postdoc plus some incidentals. This morning I got news that our Australian patron has agreed to cover the cost of the two additional magnets. The university is working on the contract as we speak!"

Trudy and Professor Gellings were genuinely surprised. The money raised by Professor Braithwaite in a matter of weeks exceeded Gellings' BSD funding for the past three years.

Emma was still looking a little shell shocked. Trudy suspected Professor Braithwaite hadn't fully explained the nature of the time travel device to her student properly.

"So, there are just a couple of more things I need to finalise with Professor Gellings, if you two girls wouldn't mind packing up," said Professor Braithwaite.

Trudy turned off the lamp on the projector while Emma disconnected her laptop. At a signal from Professor Gellings that she should wait for him outside the room, Trudy followed Emma outside. Trudy had only just left the room when she overheard Professor Braithwaite's remark to Professor Gellings:

"Well, I would think this would be another _Nature_ paper, David..."

* * *

Three months later, despite being down two postdocs and plagued by a part-time technical officer who never seemed to be around when he was needed, they were ready to go. The improvised device had been tacked onto the end of the neutrino beam with the four shaping magnets in-between. Most of the work on the hardware had been done by Michael, with Trudy as his offsider—there were some nooks and crannies in the lab where Michael's special wheelchair just couldn't go. Professor Gellings had even rolled up his sleeves on one or two occasions to meet deadlines, despite not having worked in the lab for at least ten years. Aside from teaching, Gellings spent a lot of his time going to conferences to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field. Plus there were the interminable research grants to write.

The device had been tested with several animals, the largest being a Golden Retriever from the rescue shelter. All had been successfully extracted after translation in accordance with the MIT protocols and verified as having entered the correct period via isotopic analysis. The retriever was currently still in isolation as a precaution. They had called her 'Elle'—a compromise between Trudy's suggested name of 'Lucky' and Michael's of 'Laika'.

Detailed historical analysis by Professor Braithwaite had identified an ideal delivery point for Emma on the Bentham Estate, Neighbury Park, near Steventon.

Now, at 4pm, Emma was standing nervously in historically correct clothing for a maid of the era—a caraco and skirt with an apron over the top, hobnail boots and a neat cap. It would be her job to somehow inveigle herself into the manor house so that she could observe its occupants during the critical time period over Christmas-New Year of 1794-5 when it is thought Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley visited for a ball. Emma had been immunised for every communicable disease of the era including plague. She had also flown to MIT to attend the first ethics course on time-travel.

After checking the status of the vacuum line, Trudy quietly sidled up to Emma to provide moral support. The technical officer, Patrick McPhee, had magically materialised at the golden moment. His sole contribution to the past three weeks of hard work had to been to volunteer to pick up various bits of hardware at Bunnings in one of the school vehicles—trips that took an inordinately long time and frequently resulted in the school car returning with sand on the seats. He was now entertaining Professor Braithwaite with a very learned description of the stellarator* while Professor Gellings observed Michael's preparations. Finally Michael declared the beam ready and Trudy helped Emma into the transport cabinet. Emma had assumed the crouching position before in tests, but never in historical clothing. There was a slight hitch when she found her whalebone corset was too tight, and Trudy was obliged to hastily loosen it.

"Coming into apogee in one minute," warned Michael.

If they missed their slot, they would have to wait for a half-hour for Trudy's next calculated 4-vector, or risk translating Emma into an unmapped obstacle.

Emma successfully squeezed herself into the allotted space and crouched there like a runner on the starting blocks. Trudy closed and secured the cabinet, then gave the thumbs up to Michael.

"Thirty seconds and counting..." advised Michael, moving his chair aside so Trudy could monitor the diagnostics on the left screen while he concentrated on the right.

Professor Gellings moved behind them to watch the proceedings on the screens while a tight-lipped Professor Braithwaite maintained a respectful distance from the balefully humming machinery. Patrick stood beside her, giving a running commentary and stroking his beard occasionally for the university photographer, who snapped away for posterity, seemingly oblivious of the largely tense atmosphere.

"Three, two, one...," intoned Michael.

Professor Braithwaite was holding her breath.

"Successful translation," said Michael.

Trudy got up to check the cabinet, hovering near the door for the 'all clear'.

"Ten per cent, five...," intoned Michael. "All clear!"

Trudy opened the door of the cabinet. Emma was gone.

* * *

**Footnotes**

Pulling my leg—you're joshing me

STEM—science, technology, engineering, mathematics

spitting chips—furious. Probably comes from spitting chips of teeth. Ie how you angry you would be after a few punches had been thrown.

CAD—computer-aided design

nice—Unix command for changing the priority of computationally intensive jobs

ANU—Australian National University

CPT—Charge, parity, and time reversal

stellarator—a plasma containment device for producing controlled fusion reactions


	2. Mixed signals

**Well, some enthusiasm there but mostly silence and one definite no. I guess I'll keep going until we at least get to a canon character.**

**Suggestions for the title of Chapter 1 were:**

**"Quest Initiated" or "Time and Relative Dimension in Space" by ****_Lee3619_****,**

**"Time Will Explain" by ****_nanciellen_****,**

**"Assuming the position" by ****_Astarte2016_****,**

**I thought of "Art in Science" and "Austen Science" to describe the collaboration, inspired by ****_Lee3619's_**** entry. I think I will go with the former.**

**As usual, you will find a Pinterest board for _Quantum Entanglement_ under my user name Fredward1800. I can't put a URL on here. Just google 'Fredward1800 Pinterest'. Then on Pinterest, search for 'quantum'.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Afterwards they popped the cork on a bottle of champagne to mark the occasion. Although it was only the five of them and the university photographer, Trudy thought the humming machinery gave the room a party atmosphere. She ferried a glass to Michael who had remained by the monitor to watch for the first BID* signal.

Professor Braithwaite sipped her glass nervously. She had been all business until she stepped into the basement physics lab for the first time and was confronted with the maze of stainless steel, cables and blinking lights. She had suddenly been daunted by the enormity of what they had undertaken.

Professor Gellings had previously reassured her that only minor misadventures had occurred in other experiments—most due to translation into objects. That was why the MIT protocols had been developed. Michael and Trudy had assiduously mapped out a translation grid with the test animals. Still, Judith would have trouble sleeping until Emma returned. The baleful machinery had ebbed her confidence.

Now, she pulled herself together to congratulate Trudy, Michael and Patrick on a job well done.

Professor Gellings offered to take her on an impromptu lab tour. Judith was relieved when he informed her that WHS* did not permit alcohol in the working part of the lab beyond the yellow line. The champagne was not sitting well on her stomach. She gratefully set down her glass while Patrick retreated to refill his.

"So over here, the beamline connects to the stellarator,* which is housed in the annex behind the main physics building..." said Gellings, talking over the noise of the machinery.

Professor Braithwaite followed him cautiously, being careful not to brush any of the equipment—it all looked incredibly dangerous, like it should be in a James Bond movie. She would not have blinked if Ernest Blofeld has stepped from behind a piece of machinery, stroking his cat, to explain his insidious schemes. But she and Gellings had moved far enough from the other occupants of the lab to talk privately.

"It must be difficult moving around in here," she observed. "I didn't realise Michael was in a wheelchair. Does he have muscular dystrophy?"

"No, he was a successful engineer in the construction industry before a crane collapse ended his career—the one at the ABS site, three years ago. It was reported on the news."

"Oh! The one that collapsed in high winds?" asked Judith. "Wasn't someone killed?"

"That's it—the driver was killed, and three more injured, Michael among them. The coroner determined the crane should not have been operating in the gusty conditions. Apparently Michael had gone to the site to ask the contractor to shutdown after they failed to respond to his texts. He was in hospital for three months and has been in rehab ever since."

"How terrible. And so he decided to come back to do a PhD? It's very noble of him."

"Yes. His union sued the construction company on behalf of the dead and injured workers. His compensation was enough to buy a house in Annandale. His wife still works, but he didn't want to sit at home, hence the decision to come back to do a PhD. His original idea was to study theoretical physics. But once I had a chat with him, I convinced him he could be of more value to us in the lab. He has more practical knowledge than either of my postdocs. That is why he is a godsend."

"And what of your two postdocs?" asked Judith. "Were they unable to be here this afternoon? I'm sorry I wasn't able to raise enough money to cover both of their salaries. Have you decided which one you intend to keep on?"

"I'm afraid both have decided to leave the lab—one to go to Canada and the other to leave science altogether. They were both rather blindsided by the loss of funding. Nima has a family and Christian... well, he's a sensitive soul."

Judith was clearly disconcerted by the news. "Do you think you can keep going without them?"

"I guess we'll just have to," replied Gellings. "Trudy and Michael have been real troopers in moving this forward before your patron's deadline elapsed..."

Once the lab tour was finished, the four researchers reconvened near the control panel to wait for the first BID signal. Patrick had gone off on urgent business as soon as he'd emptied the bottle of champagne.

When the green signal came in successfully, Professor Braithwaite gave a visible sigh of relief and bid the others goodbye—she was engaged to speak on Austen at a 'Women in Business' dinner in the City. Professor Gellings, on the other hand, went back to his office to email colleagues, in an attempt to identify a replacement postdoctoral fellow of sufficient quality.

* * *

So it was left to the two PhD students, Trudy and Michael, to monitor the equipment for the first twenty-four hours. Emma was scheduled to return briefly at 4.30 pm the next day for her first check-in and to replenish her water.

They had hoped initially that they could work in shifts with one or both of the labs' postdocs, who were still on salary. But both Christian and Nima had indicated their unwillingness to participate. Christian had declined politely, saying he had ethical objections to quantum entanglement experiments and thereafter handed in his notice. Nima had told them they could get unprintable—he had arranged another position in a more civilised country, where they didn't treat scientists like beggars.

"And where is this more civilised country?" asked Trudy as she sipped a cup of coffee.

"Canada, apparently," said Michael as he checked the next BID poll. "Nima said all the research in Australia is done by slave labour in the form of PhD students."

Trudy laughed. "There may be an element of truth in that!"

Michael shook his head and winced. "I'm not sure Canada is much different."

"Regretting starting the PhD?" asked Trudy.

"I had nothing better to do," said Michael philosophically. "But I had no idea things were this bad in research at universities when I worked in industry."

"It beggars belief!" huffed Trudy. "What company would hire workers and then tell them to sit in a dark room to save electricity?"

"Yes. I get the impression that politicians think that research is an optional extra at universities," said Michael ruefully. "They seem not to appreciate how closely linked research is to innovation and the high-tech economy or to a first-rate STEM curriculum."

The next BID signal came in green and at Michael's urging, Trudy settled down for a nap around her usual bed-time of 10.30. She was to take over monitoring the console from him after the 2am BID signal came in. Trudy had brought in a sleeping bag, intending to bunk down on the linoleum laboratory floor. But having sat on her sleeping bag to drink her coffee, she had to admit the floor in the basement was a tad colder than the floor upstairs in her office. Michael had a sleeping bag too, but he'd also brought in a camp bed, and he encouraged Trudy to lay her sleeping bag out on that.

When Michael woke Trudy just after two, he advised her the BID signals had all come in green.

She rolled up her sleeping bag while Michael went off to the disabled toilet down the hall. When he returned, Trudy wandered over to the sink to make herself a coffee then slyly watched Michael prepare for bed. She was curious to see how he managed. She got the impression his wife helped him a lot at home.

Michael typically wore jeans but had turned up on the first day of the experiment uncharacteristically wearing a grey track suit. He unzipped his hoodie and hung it on the back of his chair to reveal a white T-shirt underneath, then took off his shoes by wedging them one at a time on a piece of unused equipment, before running his wheelchair backwards. He let down the right side of his wheelchair then managed to swing his torso onto the camp bed using the two sturdy armchairs he'd had Trudy arrange on either side of it. Finally he dragged his legs into the sleeping bag with his hands and zipped it up. Trudy was pretty impressed with how well he had coped.

"Goodnight," he said, lying down and pulling the sleeping bag hood over his eyes.

"'Night," replied Trudy.

Trudy sat down at the console with her coffee. Technically, she shouldn't have the coffee on the 'lab' side of the yellow line but it was considered acceptable practice to drink at the console provided one used a lidded cup to minimise the chance of a spill.

She scrolled through the machine log and BID history to familiarise herself with the output before the next signal came in. Everything looked normal, with only a slight hiccup on the third handshake when the machine had pulsed twice before receiving the BID signal. She must have been out of the lab when that occurred, possibly retrieving their dinner from the UberEats driver. There was nothing abnormal in the stellarator output for that time, so it was probably a 4-vector anomaly, likely caused by Emma moving a little further from the drop point than the 5 km default. The MIT protocol was then to gradually ramp up the neutrino flux over a series of BID handshakes to increase the range until the subject was detected again. Emma had been found on the second pulse, which equated roughly to 7.5km from the golden extraction point. Trudy wondered what Emma was doing. She was supposed to go directly to the manor house to seek work. Reassuringly, Emma had moved back within range over the next hour, because they had detected the subsequent BID on the first pulse.

Since making Emma's acquaintance three weeks ago, Trudy had emailed and spoken to Emma extensively—partly to keep their Arts collaborators abreast of progress with the magnet installation and test protocols, but also to answer a myriad of questions about the physics side of things, like whether Emma could take fresh water with her. Their more casual conversations during Emma's lab visits were most interesting though.

Emma really knew a lot about Regency life. She had talked extensively about the habits and customs of the people. It had all been very enlightening, reminding Trudy of some aspects of her country life in Tamworth. But something had bothered Trudy about these conversations and it had taken her several days to work it out after it begin niggling at the back of her mind. Most of the quaint customs Emma described seemed to be more indicative of the life of the well-to-do. Trudy worried that growing up in a posh area of Sydney's Upper North Shore, including attending an exclusive girl's private school there, had ill prepared Emma for her role as a maid. Trudy wondered how long Emma would last in the household if she was set to scrubbing floors.

These speculations lasted as long as Trudy's coffee. As soon as she had taken the last sip from the cup, Trudy set it aside and logged into the supercomputer, intent on setting up some more pre-fusion calculations now that the disruption of the last month was behind her. Professor Gellings had assured her they could work the time travel calculations that had precoocupied her into her thesis. He had, after all, very cannily given her a generic title—'Theoretical calculations on stellarator processes'. But Trudy thought there was little novelty in the QET* calculations she was doing. She had no hope of keeping up with well funded labs like MIT on such a trendy topic. Certainly, she would be grateful for a minor authorship on the proposed Jane Austen Nature paper, if it eventuated. But Trudy didn't think her contribution would be novel enough to be included in her thesis unless she could find an analytic solution for a special case—like the Los Alamos team had done; or improve the speed of the calculations with a better algorithm—as she had believed she had done for the pre-fusion calculations before her work had been interrupted.

Trudy worked steadily over the next two hours, coding the revised algorithm and setting up new parameters. She was almost ready to set her jobs running when the second BID signal for her shift was due, so she set aside her work for the moment to give it her full attention.

But when the signal came in, Trudy saw with horror that it was neither the green 'all is well' signal, nor the red 'out of range' signal that had occurred at midnight, but an orange 'extraction request' signal. Michael had already programmed the extraction sequence during the multiple trials, so the machine began to power up the beam line automatically. Trudy got up immediately to check the cabinet was in reception mode, but fearful that Emma might be sick or injured, she yelled to wake Michael.

By the time Trudy had checked the cabinet and returned to the console to monitor the neutrino flux over the cabinet, she heard Michael's wheelchair approaching.

"Emma requested an extraction?" he asked.

"Yes!" Trudy yelled over the increased hum of the machinery as she moved aside to let him take the primary position at the console.

"All looks normal on this end. Thirty seconds and counting..."

Trudy moved to the cabinet in readiness.

"Three, two, one...," intoned Michael.

Trudy realised she was holding her breath. It was so different to the tests with animals when she had not felt the least anxiety—well, may be a little for 'Elle', the Golden Retriever.

"Successful extraction," said Michael as the machine hum peaked then began to die down.

Trudy waited with impatience for the neutrino flux to dissipate.

"Ten per cent, five...," intoned Michael. "All clear!"

When Trudy opened the cabinet, Emma seemed to burst from its confines, waving her hand furiously and then holding it in front of her mouth.

Having spent quite a few nights extracting her hard-drinking brothers from Tamworth pubs, Trudy understood the signal immediately and grabbed the waste paper bin. Emma emptied the contents of her stomach into it.

* * *

**Footnotes**

BID—explained in chapter 1, bidirectional signalling device

WHS—Work Health and Safety

stellarator—a toroidal device for producing controlled nuclear fusion that involves the confining and heating of a gaseous plasma by means of an externally applied magnetic field. stellar + -ator (as in generator); from its use of temperatures approaching those occurring in some stars.

QET—quantum entanglement temporale (French acronym adopted universally)


	3. Beyond the pail

**Wishful thinking, _Marabel_.**

**Thanks for the idea of calves' foot jelly, _GemmaDarcy_. I'll submit it as a title for this chapter.**

**Suggestions for the title of chapter 2 were:**

**"Mixed signals" by _Astarte2016_,**

**"Waiting" by _LMFG_.**

**Ok, I think I'll go with "Mixed signals" by _Astarte2016_,**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

It had not been scrubbing the floors that had ultimately tested Emma's dedication but a combination of duties that included emptying the chamber pots.

After helping Emma to the nearest toilet to clean up, Trudy was reassured by the Arts student that she was not in need of medical assistance, being merely dispirited, sore and bilious. Emma had rinsed her mouth out and taken off the apron she was wearing, which had been slightly soiled in the incident.

They returned to the lab where Michael brewed cups of tea for them all—peppermint for Emma, at her request. He had relegated the noisome waste paper bin to a corner, capped with a piece of steel from the 'useful box', so called as a little joke by Professor Gellings—as a child, he had been a fan of Play School* and his children watched the program now.

Curling up in one of the armchairs while Trudy similarly occupied the other, Emma related her adventure as they sipped their drinks. With her initial emergency behind her, Emma's tone was one of doleful self-pity.

She had arrived, as planned, at the drop point just before dawn. But as she walked down the hill towards Netherby in the gathering light, Emma had seen a dogcart* leave the manor house. When she arrived at the back door and requested the housekeeper, she had been informed by a maid that Mrs Nicholls had gone off to Oxford, to hire extra help for the ball. This had been Emma's first surprise—a minor research coup really—for Mrs Nicholls had been the name of the housekeeper at Netherfield Park in 'Pride and Prejudice'—suggesting that the similarity in the names of the real and fictional estates, where the alleged meeting between Jane, Fanny and Mr Darcy occurred, was more than a coincidence.

When Emma asked if she might wait inside for the housekeeper's return, the girl had replied she didn't see much point—all the positions would be filled by the time of Mrs Nicholls return.

Emma had seen immediately that her only chance of employment lay in following Mrs Nicholls to Oxford. Disheartened, she had trudged off down the drive in pursuit of the long gone dogcart. By the time she had gained the lane and reached the first milestone, Emma knew she had not spent sufficient time wearing in the hob nail boots that had been specially constructed for her by a historic bootmaker. They were damnable things that seemed to assume her feet were symmetric—with the big toe in the middle. Despite her stockings, she could feel her little toes were rubbed raw. So Emma had sat on the milestone and applied every one of the half-dozen band-aids she had slipped into her 'pocket'* along with a few other useful things.

Emma had gone on for another mile, fearing her efforts would all be for nought, for at her current rate of progress, she would only meet Mrs Nicholls as the dogcart was returning from Oxford. But her luck had changed. A farmer's cart, bound for the market, had come up with her from behind and the middle-aged farmer had offered her a lift. The farmer had seemed kindly at first, but she had been forced to endure several flirtatious comments before he suggested she could earn a shilling 'an easy way'. This revelation had caused Michael and Trudy to gasp. Emma assured them that she had replied that she was a good girl who went to church on Sundays and the fellow had fortunately subsided.

Emma's luck had continued when she got to Oxford. The farmer had stopped in the square and pointed out the employment agency on the far side. When Emma had arrived there, the woman in charge told her Mrs Nicholls had gone off to do her shopping, but would be returning at ten to view the shortlisted applicants. After repeating her qualifications, which including sewing and cooking, Emma had found the woman looking at her dubiously.

"Your hands don't look very rough. Are you sure you might not be better as a lady's maid? I have another client at Balding Park who is looking for such..."

Emma had trotted out her cover story—that she was an orphan from darkest Oxfordshire who had been fostered out, but had recently lost her benefactor, forcing her to earn her own way. "I was on my way to London, where I believed there might be more positions, but seeing your office as I passed through, I thought I might as well try here. As much as I'd like to be a ladies' maid, I'm afraid I probably don't have the right skills—I can sew but am not very skilled with grooming."

"I see," said the woman. "Well I'm sure Mrs Nicholls will be willing to look at you. It is only a short-term position, you understand. They need a few extra hands for their upcoming ball. But the experience might help you get a better position in London."

Emma had agreed it was just the sort of thing she was looking for.

When Mrs Nicholls returned at ten, wishing to employ one footman and two maids, a total of five potential servants had been mustered for her inspection. Of the two youths, the shorter one had a cast to his eye, and the housekeeper immediately chose the other without asking them any questions. Emma then found herself being scrutinised along with two more experienced maids. Fortunately, Mrs Nicholls took a dislike to one of the girl's dirty fingernails. Emma found to her relief that she had been employed.

The new servants were escorted back to the dogcart where they helped load the provisions under the seat. After Mrs Nicholls was assisted up beside the driver, the three new servants arranged themselves on the back seat where Emma found herself sandwiched between the other maid and the footman.

On their journey back, Mrs Nicholls chatted amiably with the driver to the exclusion of the recent hires behind them. Possibly encouraged by the socialising on the front seat, the footman beside Emma started to get chatty part-way back to the house. Emma replied politely in as few words as possible, not wishing to encourage his advances. The conversation earned them both a rebuke from Mrs Nicholls who stated baldly that fraternisation between domestics was strictly forbidden and would result in them both being turned off without a character.

Arriving back at the manor house, the footman was tasked with unloading the cart while both new maids were set to work in the kitchen. It might not have been floor scrubbing, but unfortunately Emma found even this work back breaking.

The kitchen was very old-fashioned, much in the medieval style with a huge open hearth, complete with spit. She had burnt herself several times rearranging pots on hooks over the fire. Water could only be had from a pump in the yard and Emma was sent out several times to retrieve it with a heavy wooden pail that weighed almost as much as the water itself.

Emma rendered up her blistered hands as evidence.

To add insult to injury, some of the sights and smells in the kitchen had been really quite nauseating. Emma had never smelt rabbit roasting before and was sure she never wished to taste it. But the worst had been Mrs Nicholls preparations for the ball. In addition to the white soup Mrs Nicholls had been lovingly preparing over the past week—just like in 'Pride and Prejudice', Emma had added with a trace of her former enthusiasm—the housekeeper had several complicated sweet dishes in mind. She had then proudly displayed the calf's foot* she had acquired that morning in Oxford. The sight of the disembodied member had been sufficient to make Emma dry wretch into her mouth, and she had felt rather off-colour for the rest of the day.

Emma had had another minor victory after noon when she had been sent to the study with a tray of sandwiches for the masters' luncheon.

She had wondered a little at being granted this 'privilege' over several more experienced servants, but when she got to the study, all was explained. Mr Bentham was in a towering bad temper. Emma discovered later that he had lost an argument with his wife over use of their carriage. Victorious, his wife had gone off in the vehicle with their guest—none other than Fanny Bentham herself—to visit, of all places, 'the Rectory'. Perhaps Fanny was visiting the Austens, possibly even being introduced to Jane for the first time!

So Emma had set the tray of sandwiches on the desk and asked the master if he wished her to pour the tea. She had had her head snapped off for her trouble—for apparently Mr Bentham always poured his own. Nonetheless, Mr Bentham had looked up from the letter he was writing as he delivered his rebuke and cut himself off short, adding an apology.

Trudy immediately suspected that Emma's pretty face and striking green eyes might have had something to do with Mr Bentham's Damascene conversion*.

Mr Bentham had politely asked Emma to deliver a list that was sitting on his desk to Mrs Nicholls on her return to the kitchens.

This list had turned out to be none other than the list of guests for the ball, written in a pretty woman's hand.

On leaving the room, Emma had quickly perused the list by the fanlight. Her heart skipped a beat on seeing Mr Darcy's name. But there was no 'Mr Bingley'. Instead, the entry below Mr Darcy's name on the list was 'Mr Bottomley and company'.

"Remember how that name was obscured on Fanny's letter?" Emma asked Trudy, departing from her tale. "I always said that the blotch looked too long to be 'Bingley', but Professor Braithwaite said it was probably a cross-out."

Apparently not much had happened after that. Emma had given the list to Mrs Nicholls who had complained loudly because it had grown by a half since she had last seen it. The housekeeper would have to think of new dishes and go back into Oxford for more provisions.

Despite her small triumphs, Emma had continued to feel nauseous for the rest of the day and had almost vomited again after being tasked with emptying the chamberpots in the bed chambers after the family had gone down to dinner.

The straw that broke the camel's back had appeared when she retired for the night. After labouring in the scullery till close to midnight, Emma had finally been shown to the servants' quarters. Emma had expected her accomodation to be a shared bedchamber in the attics containing multiple bedsteads for several maids. The Georgian manor at Netherby Park had burnt down in the Victorian era and been replaced by a much grander structure, so she had not been able to get much information on the layout of the house during her research. The reality had been much humbler than expected. Her 'room' was little better than a cupboard—the size of her walk-in wardrobe at her parents' home on the North Shore. The door, opening outwards into the hall, had revealed a windowless room with a single thin mattress—not much thicker than a yoga mat—covering the entirety of the floor. It was meant to accomodate the three most junior maids.

Emma had gone outside to the privy where she had earlier emptied the chamberpots, shut herself inside and activated the BID.

* * *

**Footnotes**

Play School is an Australian educational television show for children produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It is the longest running children's show in Australia, and the second longest running children's show worldwide, after Blue Peter. Play School began production on 18 July 1966 (three years before Sesame Street), and was based on a British programme of the same name, outliving its template. The useful box contained everyday items like straws and egg cartons that could be reused in craft projects.

dog cart—the regency equivalent of a Ute or pick-up truck ie a practical vehicle. Passengers typically sat back to back in this four-wheeled vehicle. The open under-seat storage was designed for dogs, hence the name, but other things could be stowed there.

Pocket—of the type that Lucy Locket lost

calf's foot—before gelatin was produced at industrial scale around 1830, jelly was set by boiling the mixture with a whole a calf's foot.

Damascene conversion—Damascus was the site of Paul the Apostle's conversion.


	4. Bootstrapped

**I've decided to start a Twitter feed, Fredrica1800, drawing attention to Sydney's** **Regency past. If you live in Sydney or plan to visit, you may wish to subscribe. I'll try to tweet weekly. I will also tweet publication updates on my books, although don't expect one of those immediately. **

**Suggestions for the title of chapter 3**

**"Calves' foot jelly" by ****_GemmaDarcy_****, **

**"beyond the pail" by ****_Astarte2016_**

**"Servant" by ****_guest_**

**Oh, very good, ****_Astarte2016_****, "Beyond the pail" it is.**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Emma insisted on filling out an WHS report noting her blistered hands and feet before summoning a taxi home to the North Shore.

"Well," said Michael as he and Trudy watched the tail lights of the taxi disappear. "That WHS report was a bit weird. Perhaps she was worried that Professor Braithwaite would be angry with her for coming back early."

"If I had raised that much money for an experiment like this," said Trudy. "I think I would be pretty mad with her for bailing."

"I don't think I would have been too keen on continuing in the circumstances," Michael admitted, then shrugged. "I guess we should put the equipment on standby and go home too. Can I give you a lift?"

Trudy looked at her Fitbit. "2.30. After all that excitement, I don't feel very sleepy. Maybe I'll start my program running and then bunk down on your camp bed..."

So they had gone back to the lab. Michael had tended to the stellarator while Trudy washed out the rubbish bin. It hardly seemed fair to leave it to the cleaning staff.

Then Trudy had watched Michael trundle to his car in the school's disabled spot before retreating back into the Physics building once he was safely inside the vehicle. The campus was generally a safe place during the daylight, petty theft being the most likely crime. But there was the occasional mugging after dark, plus the infamous episode in the School of Physics that had occurred about a year ago in the wee hours, involving a third year PhD student from Condensed Matter Physics.

Joung Lee-Kim had been in the habit of working alone at night. Her Korean parents in no way approved of her PhD in theoretical physics. During her undergraduate studies they had mistakenly thought she was pursuing an accounting degree. But when Joung announced she wished to continue her studies after graduating, her parents put their collective foot down. She was needed to work in their ailing corner shop business. That was why they had permitted her to study accounting in the first place! So Joung had compromised by promising to work in the corner shop during the day if they let her continue her studies at night. She slept at her desk while her jobs were running on the supercomputer or in the lab while she was waiting for data to acquire.

But one night when walking between her office and her lab, Joung had encountered a naked man in an upstairs corridor. The fellow was bearded and unkempt like a homeless man, though where his clothes had gone was anyone's guess. He had clearly smashed his way into the building through an upstairs window and collapsed shortly afterwards. He was curled in a foetal position, groaning, surrounded by smears of blood. Joung took one look, retreated to her office and locked herself in. She then called university security.

Half an hour later, Joung decided to venture out, thinking that the situation must surely have been addressed. To her horror, she discovered the man still lying there, now in distinct pools of blood. She went back to her office, dialled triple 0, then requested the police and ambulance. Sirens blaring, the police arrived seven minutes later, closely followed by the ambulance. It was only after the man was being pushed away on a gurney that two university security officers arrived, forty-five minutes after her initial call. She roundly denounced them in rapid-fire Korean, then never worked alone at night again. She finished her PhD from her parents' shop, between doing the shop accounts. University IT set up her laptop so she could log in remotely.

* * *

Safely back inside the building, Trudy ran up and down the corridor until she was completely out of breath. Feeling like she had boiled off enough of her excess energy to sit down to work, she headed back to the basement lab, where the humming machine substituted for a cheerful companion.

Trudy took a little longer than expected to get her programs running, but she climbed into her sleeping bag sometime after 4 a.m. She was definitely bleary and in need of a few more hours sleep when woken by Michael at 10.30 a.m.

"Sorry to wake you, kiddo," whispered Michael, "but your presence is requested at an emergency meeting in the Arts department at 11. I offered to go, but Prof said they specifically requested you."

"What's up?" said Trudy, yawning and stretching.

"Don't know," said Michael. "My guess is they are trying to flesh out a new plan to salvage the project. I brought you one of my wife's chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. Why don't you clean up while I'll make you a cup of coffee?"

Trudy thanked him, then went off to freshen up, returning in time to scoff the muffin, swig half the coffee, then brush her teeth.

When she found Professor Gellings had already left his office, she sprinted to catch up with him.

They went up the stairs to Professor Braithwaite's office together, with Professor Gellings asking Trudy for her opinion on last night's events. "David said Emma seemed very dispirited and doubted she would want to go back."

"I think it would be hard for anybody from a First World country to live as a servant two hundred years ago," answered Trudy generously. "When we think of progress in the last two hundred years, we tend to think of cars, planes and computers, but creature comforts have come a long way."

"We've put too much money into this experiment to have it fail now," said Gellings rather grimly, causing Trudy to look at him in surprise. From being lukewarm only a matter of weeks ago, he now seemed very committed.

But they had reached the top of the stairs. Further discussion so close to Professor Braithwaite's office seemed impolitic, so Trudy bit her lip and wondered how things were going to pan out. Last night it seemed like the experiment was over, but Gellings didn't look like he was ready to give up yet.

Professor Braithwaite came to greet them at her office door, no doubt alerted by their footsteps.

"Thank you, for coming at such short notice," she said to them both before focussing on Gellings. "No doubt, Trudy filled you on last night's events. Emma rang me first thing this morning to apologise for aborting the mission, but she was worried about her health and safety."

Braithwaite looked at her watch. "Emma should have been here by now. I presume she's been delayed. Sit down and I'll fill you in on what we tentatively decided this morning over the phone."

They took their places around Professor Braithwaite's large desk.

Judith picked up a very expensive-looking Montblanc fountain pen and began to stroke it nervously as she spoke. "Emma and I had previously discussed another plan for introducing her to the Netherfield—I beg your pardon, Netherby—ball as a guest. During her call this morning, Emma told me she wanted to go ahead with the alternate plan. I feel at this stage, having tried plan A and failed, I don't think we have much choice. But I'm still of the opinion we would have learned far more if Emma had been able to move freely about the house as a servant. As a ball guest she will be restricted to certain times and places. Plus there is the extra expense of supporting an observer in the first circles. Emma believes she has come up with a solution to that difficulty.

"Apparently, Emma's great aunt is a collector of fine antiques—estate jewellery, china and such. As Emma is the only one of this lady's nephews and nieces who has ever demonstrated a sincere interest in the subject, Emma's aunt has left the collection to her, as a bequest in her will. Emma hopes she will be able to convince her aunt to donate some of the items early, so they can be pawned for cash in the past."

"Surely, Emma's aunt won't want her collection disbursed?" asked Gellings in surprise.

"Emma believes her aunt isn't acquisitive," replied Professor Braithwaite. "Her interest in these objects is mainly historical. At one stage she intended to give the entire collection to a museum, but she discovered that it would likely just be put in storage. So instead she just loans items for specific exhibitions. Emma thinks she can convince her aunt to donate some of the less significant objects in the cause of historical research. I've spent the morning emailing a colleague about the location of the best Regency pawn shops in Oxford."

"Well" joked Gellings, "I did my PhD in Cambridge, so I can only tell you the best ones there!"

Judith smiled at his pleasantry. "I'm not sure if you got a summary of Emma's initial findings?" she asked, hoping to fill in time while they waited for her tardy student to appear.

"No," said Gellings. "David only informed me that Emma had come back earlier than expected because of some difficulties she had encountered, and that everything had worked well from a technical point of view."

"Well, some progress was made on the Austen research front: Emma was able to confirm that Fanny Bentham is indeed staying at Netherby; that the housekeeper of Netherby, 'Mrs Nicholls', actually existed; and most importantly, that Mr Darcy is indeed invited to the ball. Finally, she discovered that a 'Mr Bottomley'—not Mr Bingley—was listed just after Darcy's name on the guest list."

"Perhaps Jane Austen thought Bottomley an undignified name?" offered Gellings.

"Possibly, you're right," concurred Professor Braithwaite, "or Austen might have been giving us a clue to his origins. Austen did describe Darcy's friend as coming from the north of England, as well as mentioning he had relatives in Scarborough, which is in Yorkshire. 'Bingley' is also a town in Yorkshire. One aspect of the novel highlights the fluidity of class structure in Regency times, with the upwardly mobile industrialist Bingleys looking down upon the less affluent Bennets, who are members of the landed gentry."

"Quite," said Professor Gellings who, like Trudy, had only read classic literature in high school, under duress.

Running footsteps were heard in the corridor and Professor Braithwaite gave a grateful—"Ah, here she is!"

Emma erupted into the room. "I beg your pardon! My aunt asked me over for tea when I rang her, so I thought it would be best to talk to her first," she said as she removed her leather satchel from her shoulder to drape it over her chair. "In short, my aunt has tentatively agreed to the plan, but would like to see a summary of the projected expenses to see if it's feasible. I left her preparing a list of potentially disposable items and their approximate value when new."

"Excellent!" said Judith. "Since talking to you this morning, I have contacted several British colleagues about the pawn shops. I managed to catch a few night owls. I am told that you should expect to receive about a third of the item's original value. So we will work with that."

Emma nodded enthusiastically. "I also had a brilliant idea as I was driving from my aunt's house in Mosman!" she chirped unabashedly. "I know you were convinced that more could be achieved in the project if I posed as a servant, Judith," she said contritely. "But it occurred to me in the car that we need not abandon that concept at all! Over the past few weeks when I have been talking to Trudy, it's become apparent that growing up in the country has given Trudy real insight into how people lived two hundred years ago. Why, her family still have one of those quaint wringer-style washing machines! We could send _two_ observers! Trudy could go as the servant!"

Professor Gellings shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Trudy had come to university as an undergraduate with the help of a CWA* scholarship. The stipend had barely seemed to keep a roof over her head in the fierce Sydney rental market. Trudy had caught his notice in second year when he had once had to bar her from a teaching laboratory because she was wearing inappropriate footwear—more specifically, thongs*. Her tax-free PhD scholarship had been a significant improvement in her fortunes, but even that was barely above the official poverty line. He had applied for a $6000 top-up to her scholarship in the failed BSD grant.

But Professor Braithwaite was looking inspired. "That's an interesting idea... but it would delay the project for several months while Trudy had her shots and did the ethics course. We do have a reporting deadline..."

"I think you'll find Trudy is fairly up to date with her shots," continued Emma, undeterred. "She did volunteer work for her church group in Port Moresby after she finished high school. Didn't you, Trudy?"

Trudy was feeling that her communications with Emma over the last few weeks—discourse she had traded freely with a person she viewed as an equal and a friend—had been hijacked.

"I may need some boosters and I don't think I was vaccinated against smallpox," Trudy said tentatively.

"And I've got the pdfs of the ethics lectures on my laptop, so I can give her a crash course," offered Emma.

Professor Braithwaite was looking definitely less harried. She had stopped stroking her fountain pen. "Well, that is definitely an interesting idea, Emma. But we'll need to discuss logistics with Professor Gellings. Is it possible to transport two people?"

"Well, of course," said Gellings, "...in series. We just have the two hour limit on the energy stored in the stellarator, so it would have to be staged."

The meeting quickly devolved into operational issues. Trudy was a little annoyed that her compliance was taken as given. While she'd had no ethical objections about supporting a QET experiment, it was quite unnerving to be suddenly dragged into field work. Having never read Jane Austen, she felt ill-prepared for such a role.

The conversation veered towards identifying an alternate drop point outside of Oxford that would allow Emma to establish herself at an inn in the City. Trudy found herself signed up for yet more calculations and grid search experiments.

"Excellent!" concluded Professor Braithwaite. "Well, Emma and I need to plan and cost her excursion for her aunt. Perhaps we could do that offline. Thank you again for coming at such short notice. I'll get back to you as soon as we've formed a cohesive plan."

* * *

Trudy had hoped to raise her concerns about her participation in the field work while she was walking back to the School of Physics with the professor. But on exiting the building into the quadrangle, Gellings looked at his watch.

"Well, that took longer than I expected. I'm meant to be having lunch with this afternoon's seminar speaker at noon. I agreed to meet the group at the university club, so I'd better head straight there. Could you let Michael know about the new plans? I expect Judith will get back to us with her revised drop point sometime today. If you could start the new calculations for the grid search, that would be terrific."

And then he was gone.

Trudy was so agitated, she couldn't face talking to Michael straight away. So she retrieved her gym bag from her office and set off to work off some nervous energy.

The gym session did not succeed in calming her spirits. Heading back to the basement lab, Trudy flung her bag onto one of the armchairs that had last night flanked Michael's camp bed, which he seemed to have packed away.

"You look a little agitated," said Michael. "What was the upshot? Is Emma willing to give it another go?"

"You'll never guess what I've been roped into!" exclaimed Trudy.

"Yet more calculations?" suggested Michael.

"More than that!" harrumphed Trudy. "They want to send me back in time as well!"

"Whatever for?" said Michael, truly surprised.

"So I can take over being a servant from Emma while she goes to the ball like Cinderella!"

Michael raised his eyebrows. He would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when that very un-PC suggestion had been made. Emma was exceptionally pretty in a very white-skinned WASPish sort of way. She could have been a model. While Trudy... well, Michael tried not to think of it, but she had a more womanly figure. Personally Michael thought her face was even prettier than Emma's, with sparkling brown eyes surrounded by long lashes that were wide apart and tilted upwards at an interesting angle. Michael was not aware of Trudy's ethnicity, but there was a dusky tone to Trudy's skin that was more than a tan. And then, of course, there was their very different economic situations. Australians liked to view their society as a meritocracy—university entrance was based on high school exam scores, not ability to pay. But the whole system was still tilted towards those whose parents could afford to send them to better resourced schools that coached intensively for the High School Certificate. Coming from a working class family in the bush, Trudy was an anomaly.

"I can see why that might annoy you," sympathised Michael.

"I shouldn't have said that," sighed Trudy. "Sometimes I can't stop myself from saying something clever. I'm feeling more out of my depth than anything else. I don't know the first thing about Regency England! I would rather stick to the technical side of the project."

They had a cup of tea together before Trudy retreated to her upstairs office to check on the progress of her pre-fusion calculations while Michael went back to scratching his head over his plans for a bigger transport cabinet for the QET experiments—it was all a question of optimising the beam shape with the superconducting magnets. But how to do it in so limited a space?

An email from Judith arrived late in the afternoon with details of the new drop point outside of Oxford. Trudy spent an hour reconfiguring the parameters for the new grid search of the area with the test animals.

When Trudy arrived at the School of Physics the next day, Michael had a gift for her.

"It's the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice—my wife's favourite," he said, handing her the DVD, "—for research purposes. You can keep it for as long as you like—my wife has two copies."

"Oh, that's very sweet of you to think of me!" said Trudy, wondering how she was going to view it. The sole furniture in the lounge room of her share house was a makeshift table consisting of a door on two Besser blocks. Her flat mates called it their 'Thai' table. There was no TV in the house, let alone a DVD player.

Heading upstairs to her office, Trudy had cause to regret checking her email when she discovered another message from Professor Braithwaite, prompting her to be immunised against smallpox and requesting a medical certificate to show her other shots were up to date.

After arriving back from the university clinic, where all visits were fortunately bulk-billed*, Trudy tried to get down to work, but another email arrived from Emma, who was intent on outfitting Trudy for her expedition. She needed Trudy's measurements for the seamstress. It was Emma's intention to have the servant's clothes she had worn altered.

In her reply, Trudy was rather sceptical that such an alteration could be achieved, for though she was a little shorter than Emma, she had less gazelle-like proportions. Emma quickly shot back that historical servants' clothes often bore the hallmarks of alteration, adding the changes would add authenticity to the clothes.

Off Trudy went to the ladies' toilets with a marker pen and a piece of string, which was duly compared to a metre rule, attached to the wall of the Gravity lab.

A more difficult problem was posed by the boots, which Emma attempted to force onto Trudy's feet in the afternoon, much to Trudy's annoyance. She was busy trying to rearrange the beamline under Michael's instructions. Trudy's wide size eight feet could in no way fit into the boots made for Emma, whose feet were half a size shorter and AA in width. Now Trudy felt like Cinderella's ugly sister and had visions of Emma hacking off her little toe to make things fit, as had been done in more gruesome versions of the tale that her father liked to tell. Despite the long lead time on the original pair of boots, Emma seemed determined to let nothing get in the way of her new plan. She insisted on tracing both of Trudy's feet while Trudy stood there with a Stillson* in her hands.

Emma's whole managing attitude was beginning to sorely try Trudy's patience and unfortunately it boiled over in her afternoon teaching lab. All PhD students were encouraged to do some teaching, 'to improve their academic experience' and also to provide the university with cheap labour in the form of casual staff. Trudy quite enjoyed 'demonstrating', which involved supervising students setting up simple experiments, taking measurements, analysing the data, and filing a report. Unfortunately she did not enjoy working under Demonstrator-in-Charge Paul Feckless, generally acknowledged in the school as a pompous ass.

Paul was one of those students who had never managed to finish his PhD. He had been the first and last student of Professor Povey, who had held the post of First Year Teaching Lab Director for 30 years. After years of increasingly threatening letters, the university had finally dis-enrolled Mr Feckless at the ten-year anniversary of his admission as a postgraduate student. But he had somehow managed to hold onto his plum tenured teaching post and, possibly aided by his supervisor's recommendation, had moved from the unofficial role of aide-de-camp to the director to 'Demonstrator-In-Charge'. The fact that a new director was not appointed might have been down to a lack of volunteers for the post—most of the tenured faculty in Physics scorned teaching in favour of research. This was particularly true of first year laboratory service classes, which included such historically interesting and cheap experiments as the Wheatstone bridge*, designed in the 19th century. The first year teaching labs were staffed by PhD students and external casual staff, overseen by Mr Paul Feckless.

In the five years since he had inherited the mantle of authority, Paul had managed to annoy pretty much everyone he came in contact with. It was generally grumbled amongst the staff that the position hadn't been properly advertised. But nobody could be bothered doing anything much about it.

Trudy's beef with him was more of an 'equity and diversity' nature. He tended to be condescending to female students, often commandeering the keyboards of their computers while giving verbal instructions to their male counterparts. His windowless office, off the labs and directly visible from them, was decorated with posters of naked models draped over Ferraris. Trudy had on several occasions pointed out that his decor contravened the University's gender equity code. Paul maintained it was his office, which he could arrange as he saw fit.

Trudy had butted heads with him on several occasions, but the incident that afternoon involved some reverse discrimination. As usual, Trudy had handed out last weeks' graded reports at the start of the lab. An extremely well groomed but tiresome female student had objected to her 'C', which was awarded to competent but unremarkable work. The report was very neatly and succinctly presented, but lacked any insight. Nor had Trudy missed the fact that the student had conscripted one of the males of her group to set up her equipment for her on the previous week— despite clear instructions that advice could be sought from fellow students, but all work should be performed independently. When appeals to Trudy for a better mark throughout the next session fell on deaf ears, the student approached Paul at the end of the lab, to point out the merits of her work from behind fluttering lashes. She had promptly been upgraded to an 'A'.

Trudy took Paul to task in his office after the lab—for favouritism and undermining her authority as a tutor, allegations he merely scoffed at. Infuriated, Trudy swept aside his novelty eraser collection, leapt upon his surprisingly bare desk, and tore down two of the Ferrari posters while Paul gaped at her. Unfortunately the incident had been witnessed by another tutor who was returning to the lab to retrieve an item of clothing.

Trudy had gone home ruing her bad temper. It was a cardinal sin to lose your temper in the workplace. When she arrived late at work the next day, very contrite, she would not have been surprised to be hauled into the Head of School's office for her sins. He always seemed to get the bull by the tail* on HR issues. But when she walked into morning tea, she was hailed with several cheery 'good days' from members of faculty who had never previously spoken to her. Her clash with Paul Feckless had already become legend.

Buoyed by her reception, Trudy had thought of a way to speed up her calculations in the afternoon. She had already calculated the first points for the grid search and realised she might be able to get away with using a perturbation method to fill in the grid. She was halfway through coding the algorithm in her office when Emma walked in, carrying a swish white disposable paper shopping bag, with 'Chanel' emblazoned on it.

"Hello," said Emma cheerily, looking about at the varnished wood of the door with its brass doorknob, the green lino and grey filing cabinets. "Michael said you might be up here. How quaint! An interesting mixture of twentieth century styles... but I didn't realise you had been promoted to professor," she joked, pointing to the gold letters on the door.

"Most of the faculty have moved into the new offices in the air-conditioned annexe," explained Trudy. "That's how I managed to get an office, effectively to myself. This is Professor Faulkner's office. He's still an emeritus and comes in occasionally to have tea. He owns all these piles of paper," said Trudy, gesturing at the towers that occupied every elevated flat surface except her desk.

"I'm surprised the university doesn't demand he cleans up!" remarked Emma in surprise. "This must be a fire hazard!"

"He still publishes papers," explained Trudy, "and is able to pluck whatever he wants from these piles. If he vacated this office, I would probably have to share. I'm not complaining."

"Well," said Emma, getting to the point of her visit. "I brought you the adjusted clothes to try on."

Emma set the bag down on the nearest pile of paper, shut the door and waited expectantly. Clearly she wasn't going anywhere until Trudy complied with her wishes. Sighing, Trudy unbuttoned her jeans and stripped down to her underwear. She plucked the first garment from the bag that came to hand.

"Those are the long stays," said Emma. "You need to put on the chemise first," she instructed, fishing a dull white shirt from the bag and handing it to Trudy.

Trudy pulled the chemise on, surreptitiously pulled her bra off underneath when Emma pointed out it had no role in Regency apparel, then obediently put up her hands to allow Emma to pull the corset over her head.

"Heavens above!" squeaked Trudy as Emma tightened the back. "You're asphyxiating me!"

"I haven't even tightened it properly!" chided Emma, checking the front before tugging some more. "The idea is to get a decent décolletage."

"What the hell is that?" gasped Trudy.

"An 18th century cleavage."

"Oh! Please stop!" begged Trudy. "This is so uncomfortable!"

"You'll need to get used to it," advised Emma. But she desisted from trying to achieve a 18th century 'profile' and instead pulled something that looked like Grandma's saddlebags from her hoard.

"These are adjustable but I'll just tie them on, so you get the idea," she said stringing them around Trudy's waist.

"I have to carry around my own oven gloves?" asked Trudy, rather bemused.

Emma gave a titter. "They're pockets, silly!"

"Oh!" said Trudy, exploring the depths of one of the bags. "I see. I always wondered how Lucy Locket lost her pocket. I guess it must have been one of these."

"Correct. Now comes the petticoat and the skirt. See? There are slits in the side so you can get to the pockets."

Trudy stepped into the petticoat and skirt and adjusted the drawstrings. "Well those are a bit naughty," she said, putting her hands through the skits to reach her pockets. I wouldn't be going down to the pub in this!"

"Quite," said Emma primly. "The strings can be tucked under the front of the corset or you can twist your skirts around to the back. Finally, we have the caraco," she said, pulling a jacket from the bag. "The gussets are only tacked. I thought the drawstring closure at the front might provide enough adjustability, but the seamstress seemed to think you might need to go for a fitting."

This turned out to be true. Trudy had broader shoulders than Emma and a larger bust.

"Oh, dear," said Emma, looking at the overall effect. "It doesn't fit at all. You will have to go for a fitting. No matter. She's very quick. She does costumes for the Bell Shakespeare Company."

"You forgot the bloomers," said Trudy, peeking into the now empty bag.

"There are no bloomers," explained Emma. "Those came later, during Victorian times. You're not supposed to wear anything under the petticoat."

"My goodness!" exclaimed Trudy, shocked. "You didn't go commando to meet Mr Darcy?"

"It's remarkably liberating," sniffed Emma.

"I'll keeping my knickers on, thank you very much," asserted Trudy.

"As you wish," said Emma, "—since it doesn't show. I prefer to aim for authenticity."

Trudy started undressing, handing the clothes back to Emma, who folded them neatly into the bag.

"So now there is only the boots problem to be solved," sighed Emma. "I did my best to get the bookmaker to execute a second commission more quickly—since we are such valued customers— but he's a stickler for correctness and was adamant that no-one is jumping the queue."

She bent down to place the Chanel bag on the floor. "But what are those?" she asked, spying some boots in a corner near Trudy's gym bag.

Without waiting for an answer, Emma hurried over to pick up the boots. "But these are perfect!" she exclaimed. "The soles are not historically correct, but from the top, they're fine!"

"Those are my Blundstones—my farm boots," Trudy explained. "I use them for bushwalking."

"Problem solved!" said Emma, ecstatic. "They're a little better than what a servant could typically afford, but we can say that your father is a bootmaker!"

"Well, at least they are comfortable," said Trudy with relief. "I really wasn't keen on getting into a pair of Regency boots after seeing your blisters."

"I expect it would have been easier to wear them if one had grown up wearing such shoes," dismissed Emma. "No matter. I also wanted to tell you that Judith and I have come up with the final plan for the next excursion.

"Since we now know that Mrs Nicholls recruits her staff in Oxford, you and I are to be both transported to the drop zone in Oxford. You will be go to the morning of my initial visit, so that you can apply for one of the short-term maid positions in the Netherby household and add me to the guest list for the ball. That 4-vector will have the same time component of the original 4-vector. Only the location will be slightly shifted."

"So I'm to do your day over—like Groundhog Day?" suggested Trudy.

"That's right," said Emma with a smile. "I will go to the same drop zone, but after you—to the day before the ball. That will allow me to find some temporary lodgings, hire a footman and reserve a post-chaise."

"A footman!" exclaimed Trudy. "Isn't that a servant?"

"Of course!" said Emma. "A lady cannot just go gallivanting about Regency England alone, you know! I will just take some clothes and hire a good looking fellow on the spot. The livery is being made as we speak. The average height of a male in the servant class was 5 foot six."

"Then I shall be as tall as your footman!" exclaimed Trudy.

"I suppose so," agreed Emma." How goes the grid search?"

"I've calculated the first components and thought of a method that might speed up the remaining calculations," replied Trudy. "Michael and I could start transporting the rats as early as this afternoon.

"Excellent!" said Emma. "If you give me your mobile number, I'll arrange a fitting with the dressmaker!"

She disappeared with a 'toodle-oo'—a quaint word that Trudy had only previously heard issue from the lips of Dame Edna Everage. She wondered wryly if the term was in common use on the Upper North Shore.

Trudy made quick progress on coding her perturbation algorithm and set some test calculations running on the physics server that she could later compare with the results of the more exact calculations running on the supercomputer.

She was about to head downstairs to check on Michael's progress with the beam line when it occurred to her that she might have a way of watching the Pride and Prejudice DVD after all—Professor Faulkner's old computer possessed a CD drive!

Booting the superannuated machine up, Trudy popped the drawer on the drive and was delighted when the outdated version of Windows recognised the disc.

By the time the dust had settled on the Meryton Assembly, half an hour into the first episode, Trudy was wondering why anyone would be keen on such a stuck-up snob as Mr Darcy.

However, she was quite perturbed to see that she had spent half an hour watching the series. She had only intended to check if Professor Faulkner's computer could play the disc. Trudy hurried downstairs, feeling guilty she had left Michael to get in by himself for so long.

* * *

**Footnotes**

CWA—Country Women's Association

poverty line—ACOSS defines this as about 50% of median Australian income or $433 a week. A PhD scholarship is $500 per week. Renting a single room in inner Sydney costs around $200 per week.

thongs—not a g-string. Australian 'thongs' are what the

British call flip-flops. Inexpensive and comfortable footwear for summer.

PC—politically correct.

WASP—white Anglo Saxon Protestant.

Besser blocks—concrete bricks, cinder blocks, trademark

bulk-billed—essentially a 'free' appointment, paid by the government, with no up-front fee to the patient. Most visits to a doctor in Australia, particularly specialists, are only partly paid by the government, with a 'gap' fee being paid by the patient.

Stillson—a type of adjustable pipe wrench.

The Wheatstone bridge was invented by Samuel Hunter Christie in 1833 and improved and popularized by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1843. One of the Wheatstone bridge's initial uses was for the purpose of soils analysis and comparison. Wikipedia

Bull by the tail—to take the bull by the horns is to confront a problem head on or do something difficult in a brave and determined way. Getting it by the tail is the opposite and might involve punitive action against a symptom rather than the cause; or indirectly inconveniencing everyone with some new rule designed to head off the behaviour of a few individuals rather than tackling the root cause of the problem. Not to be confused with getting a tiger by the tail, which involves having to think quickly because you have encountered a dangerous situation.

HR Human Resources

Groundhog Day—movie with Bill Murray

Toodle-oo—see you later (archaic), a corruption of the French á tout á l'heure.

Dame Edna Everage—fictitious Australian comic character


	5. Chapter 5

**My** **apologies for taking so long to post this chapter. There seemed not much enthusiasm for the story and I'm feeling a little burnt out.**

**Suggestions for the title of chapter 4 were:**

**"bootstrapped in" by Astarte2016**

**Very good, Astarte2016, "bootstrapped" it is.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

The grid search had been tedious but relatively straight forward— except for the incident where two rats had returned when only one had been sent. It seemed one of the females had attracted an amorous adventurer from the past. This was an event unreported in QET history.

On being told of the incident, Professor Gellings got quite excited about it. He jumped up so quickly in his crowded office that Trudy stepped backwards into a steel filing cabinet with a resounding clang. Perhaps he had been drinking too much coffee at the time. Gellings immediately wrote up a paragraph full of QET jargon and hypotheses for insertion in the proposed Nature paper. He was of the opinion that the mass-energy of the second rat was within the energy tolerance on the translation event, added to compensate for movement of the test animal from the golden extraction point. Gellings immediately asked Trudy to calculate whether his hypothesis was feasible.

Interesting phenomenon though it was, the second rat did pose a problem for the animal handler from biological sciences who had been tasked with delivering fresh rats daily, keeping them in quarantine and euthanising the veterans once they became stressed or showed signs of illness or injury. The Australian Quarantine Service had been quite insistent about that—rats could carry plague. Generally the rats were re-used anywhere from five to twenty times. But as soon as their in-cage monitors detected their heart rate remaining above 600 beats per minute for more than two minutes after their return, they were retired. Experiments at MIT had shown they became aggressive after repeated stress, with the males generally succumbing first. This posed a risk to their handlers who had to attach and retrieve the miniature BID devices in each session.

In the end, it proved impossible to safely separate the two returned animals. As it seemed unlikely the female rat would get any peace until they were disunited, the handler made the reluctant decision to immediately euthanise both of them. The cage was connected to the carbon dioxide supply on the transport cart, carried around for that very purpose. Trudy was a trifle distressed by the plight of the hapless female rat, but the handler—a female PhD candidate from veterinary science—was hardly ruffled, merely writing 'RIP Romeo and Juliet' on her charge sheet in the box for 'reason for termination'.

Finally, the golden retriever 'Elle' was successfully sent to and retrieved from the clearest part of the grid. She gave a happy bark of recognition when Trudy opened the door of the cabinet.

Everything was ready for Trudy's translation except for herself. Between calculations and assisting Michael, she'd had precious little time to attend to other things, like reading the library copy of 'Pride and Prejudice' Emma had obtained for her, or even the pdf of the ethics course, which ran to 96 pages. The university consent form, stating she had done the ethics training and waived all her rights to sue the university in the event of misadventure, was sitting unsigned in a pile of paper on her desk.

Nor had she even managed to finish watching Michael's DVD set. She'd got as far as the beginning of the third episode, when Mr Bingley departed from Netherfield, leaving Jane Bennet broken-hearted. Trudy had then given up in disgust. As far as she was concerned, Mr Darcy could keep his ten thousand a year—he was an arrogant git with the emotional intelligence of an impolite schoolboy. As for Mr Wickham, Trudy had already divined him as the villain of the piece. He forcibly reminded her of Bruce Sinclair, the student who had won the university medal in physics during her first year. Trudy had thought his Honours presentation rather ho-hum, but he had charmed the socks off the all-male faculty judging panel with his glib tongue, and gone off to Harvard covered in glory to do his PhD. As for Elizabeth, Trudy felt some affinity for her, but thought her rather naive. Elizabeth needed to watch soap operas.

Despite these preparational shortcomings, Trudy was getting ready for the field trip in her office. As before, the translation had been set for 4pm, to minimise the translational energy associated with the 4-vector difference, which oscillated diurnally. Trudy had stuffed her pockets with everything she thought she might need in an emergency: tampons, bandaids, iodine, a handkerchief, water tablets, the loperamide* tablets recommended by the University clinician, several rubber bands, a compass and a Swiss Army knife. Perhaps extraneously she was also taking her precious iPhone. She couldn't charge it but it was still useful if she used it sparingly. She had already downloaded a few books and Wikipedia pages for reference. Additional items, including clean underwear and a bulky frieze manteau had been stuffed into the carpet bag Emma had carried on her last trip. Finally, Trudy had strapped the BID to her thigh like a garter. She had thought Emma's policy of just dropping the device into her pocket rather fraught with danger. What would happen if she lost her pocket like Lucy Locket?

Emma had come to help her dress, which Trudy had thought kind but unnecessary. But Emma's managing style soon came to the fore. She had insisted on plaiting Trudy's long hair, which she normally kept in a pony tail. Trudy had vowed in her first year not to cut it until she had finished her PhD. The plaits had been pinned to her head and covered with a mob cap that Trudy thought made her look like a Quaker. Emma had not covered her own short hair when she had been transported. But Trudy had got a concession on the whalebone corset. She had discovered it was stiffened by a removable piece called a busk. No exhortations on Emma's part could make Trudy put the busk back in. The corset was uncomfortable enough without it.

Emma continued to coach Trudy on myriad aspects of Regency life as they walked downstairs. It just made Trudy feel more unprepared and nervous. By the time they made it to the basement lab, her heart seemed almost to be fluttering, like she had woken up on the morning of an exam she had completely forgotten about.

Having not yet found a replacement postdoc, Professor Gellings had undertaken to assist Michael. Their technical officer was once more nowhere to be seen. With no university photographer around to record the event for posterity, Patrick had called in sick. Professor Braithwaite had made it, despite being in the midst of a symposium she was organising on campus. Standing a respectful distance from the machinery, she waved when they came in.

Gellings took Michael's place at the console while Michael helped Trudy into the cabinet. It was important the door was sealed properly to make electric contact. Emma was still giving tips to Trudy as the door was being closed.

"Good luck!" Michael mouthed, so as not to interrupt Emma.

Trudy's throat was dry. She just nodded as the door closed and all light was extinguished. She reminded herself to breathe.

"So did the green light come on at the bottom left?" Michael asked Gellings as Emma joined Professor Braithwaite to watch proceedings.

"Yes," affirmed Gellings without turning his head. He was scrutinising the screen like his life depended on it.

Michael wheeled himself back to the console. "OK, one minute to apogee. Stellarator energy is high enough and stable. I'll start the subroutine to power-up the beam line and count down."

"This thing could do with a graphical user interface," grumbled Gellings, trying to come to grips with the myriad of digital and analog readouts.

"Well, I've had my hands full with the new grid search, but I hope to get to that in my spare time," replied Michael cheerfully as he typed in the relevant command and hit return.

A primitive progress bar began to march across the command line interface.

"Almost at full power...," related Michael. "Starting countdown... twenty seconds... ten... Successful translation. Can you watch the power diffuser at the bottom left of the screen, David?" asked Michael, trundling back towards the translation cabinet.

"It's down to 10%," advised Gellings. "Five... it's green."

Michael opened the door of the cabinet.

Trudy was gone.

* * *

The first thing Trudy sensed was the smell—a wonderful crisp, clean smell of cold air with a touch of wood smoke. It smelled like winter in Tamworth. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Trudy could just make out a steeple rising from a huddle of buildings ahead of her. She stood up and stretched. It was strange—she could almost imagine herself on the oval of her primary school in Tamworth, with St Paul's across the road, but she was thousands of kilometres and two hundred years away, on Christ Church Meadow. It seemed daunting to even move from the spot. Nonetheless, she was to find shelter and return to this place in an hour to retrieve and store Emma's trunk. Ladies had more baggage.

Trudy took out her compass and consulted it by the light of her iPhone to make sure she had not been turned around during the translation. She located the nearest object found by the grid search. It was a tree. Satisfied she could find the place again, Trudy picked up her carpetbag and set off in search of The Bear coaching inn, which served the London road. She had been told it might be open but could likely be accessed at any hour by banging on the door.

Trudy found it easily enough, with its distinctive bear sign, but of course, she was obliged to knock. After several minutes, a cross sleepy-looking woman opened the door.

"Where did you come from in the middle of the night?" the woman asked. "The London Post is long gone."

Trudy had her story ready. "I've come on behalf of my mistress, Miss Crossley-Biggs. Her coach has broken down outside town. She wishes to hire a room here, possibly for a few nights. I need a porter to retrieve her trunk."

"And where is your money?" demanded the woman.

Trudy opened her hand to reveal a few shillings.

"The rooms are a shilling a night, paid in advance. The porter is normally tuppence an hour but he's gone to bed. You'll have wait till sunrise for him. The most I can do for you now is lend you his barrow. You can borrow that for free but I need a shilling as surety."

Trudy handed over two shillings and was directed to the barrow.

"And is the carriage broke down very far away?" asked the proprietress as Trudy manhandled the barrow from the stables.

"Not far. I expect I will be back in an hour."

"And your mistress with you?"

"She has found shelter in a farmhouse. I expect she will come after dawn."

The barrow was heavy and clumsy, with a wrought iron rim on the wheel, but Trudy soon learned to manoeuvre it over the ruts in the road. She arrived back at the meadow and retired with the barrow to a safe distance from the drop point to check the time. Consulting her iPhone, which was still on Sydney time, not having any phone network to sync to, Trudy saw it was still ten minutes till the transfer. She belatedly put it in airplane mode to conserve battery life, retrieved the carpetbag from the barrow, took a swig of water and waited with the bottle in her hand, occasionally waking her iPhone to check the time. She was not sure if the trunk's advent would be obvious.

When the trunk did arrive, it was almost undetectable. There was a susurrus, like the rustling of some leaves. In the dim light, Trudy thought she could see an object, but she waited for another 5 minutes before approaching it—Michael had warned her that the iPhone time might not be accurate, once it was relying on its internal timing. What would happen if the trunk materialised into the space she was occupying was anyone's guess. Maybe it would bunt her out of the way or possibly land on her toe.

The antique trunk was heavy but Trudy was able to tip it on end and get the barrow underneath it. The trip back to the inn was harder. The heavier barrow dug into the earth and she had to push it occasionally at speed to gain enough momentum to negotiate several ruts. But finally she made it back, rosy-cheeked, to knock once more on the inn door.

The door was opened this time by a gaunt young man with a bristly face.

"Och, lass," he whispered. "Mrs Grindling tauld me she gae ye th' barraw. If yoo'd waited jist an hoor, Ah woods hae helped ye myself. Haur, lit me tak' 'at fur ye."

Without waiting for an answer, he grasped the heavy trunk in both hands and lugged it inside the door. This was just as well, for Trudy was having a little difficulty deciphering his speech. The fellow then stepped outside to deal with the barrow.

"Ye sit by th' fire fur a moment. I'll be back," he said softly.

Trudy understood this second speech a little better, having recognised a Scottish accent. She'd developed an ear for the school bursar's Glaswegian accent during multiple interactions since the start of her PhD, but this was something different again. With a thank you, she began to approach the fire, but stopped when she saw that the fireside was already occupied by a moustachioed man draped in a grey cloak, his long form stretched out in a Windsor chair. A bright red uniform peeped from beneath a fold of his cloak. He was apparently deep asleep. How anyone could prefer such a resting place to the floor was beyond Trudy. But then she remembered how she had slept in the lotus position in her economy seat on the flight back from New Guinea and noticed that the floor was exceedingly dirty. Still, the hard wooden chair did not look comfortable.

So she kept her distance from the fire and watched him surreptitiously from beneath her lashes. His face was not exactly that of a handsome man, but he was tall and well built. He was snoring slightly, as if he'd been drinking.

Her reverie was interrupted by a rumbling outside which soon grew to a crescendo then split into an incoherent yell of someone announcing something, the jingle of harness and the stamping of hooves. After some time, the inn door opened again and the porter returned, motioning to her to approach him.

"Th' ostlers ur aw thrang wi' th' Ludlaw Flyer," whispered the porter. "Nae passengers gettin' doon the-day, but yoo'll hae tae help me carry thes upstairs, if ye want tae gang up noo."

"Yes, please," averred Trudy.

She bent down to pick up the other end of the trunk. When she straightened, she saw the fellow by the fireside had woken and was staring straight down her cleavage.

Trudy gave him a furious glare.

His face immediately broke into a broad grin. "Can I help you there?" he offered in a smooth deep voice, in something like a caricature of a BBC accent.

Trudy would have liked to rebuff him but the trunk was heavy and she immediately realised that if she took the 'light' end by going up the stairs first, she would likely expose her cleavage to his lascivious gaze again. So she said 'thank you' with what little grace she could muster.

Once he discarded his cloak, it became clear that the man was an officer of some type. His uniform was bright red, like the painted nutcracker soldiers on Christmas trees and he unbelted a rather vicious looking sabre to lay on top of it before joining them.

"New to these parts, are you?" he asked Trudy over his shoulder as he manhandled his end of the trunk upstairs.

"Just passing through," said Trudy noncommittally, but she couldn't help noticing his well muscled legs in their tight-fighting trousers as he went up the stairs ahead of her. The stripe down their length seemed to positively demand her attention.

On setting the trunk down inside her room, the fellow gave her a nod and a smile, then set off downstairs again. Remembering his fees, Trudy fished a penny from her pocket for the porter.

"He's a braw chiel*, Colonel Fitzwilliam," confided the man as he took the coin gratefully. "There's nae mony ay th' gentry 'at woods help a servant. An' he's an earl's son tay! It seems he's taken a likin' tae ye, lassie. Noo there's a guid hin' if ye coods gie oan tae it!"

"What are you implying?" bristled Trudy.

"Nooght! Nooght!" reassured the fellow, as he took the shilling and stepped back hastily, as if expecting a blow. "Twas only coothie* advice!"

"Did you say he is an earl's son?" asked Trudy, belatedly deciphering the middle of his speech.

"Aye! th' earl ay Matlock, up Derbyshire way! Ah come frae th' north tay! Th' earl is aw tae pieces, which is wa his son is only a colonel. But ye wulnae fin' a nicer cheil!"

And with a broad grin the porter was off.

Trudy closed and locked the bedchamber door and heaved a great sigh. Step 1 accomplished. After checking her iPhone again, Trudy deemed she had ten minutes before she needed to be off to the agency in time to seek employment with Mrs Nicholls. She found the chamberpot under the bed, relieved herself, then retrieved her carpet bag from the trunk, locked it, then looked for a likely hiding place for the key. Finally, she took a swig from a plastic bottle of water.

Heaving a great sigh, Trudy braced herself for step 2 and headed out the door.

She encountered Mrs Grindling again on the stairs.

"Ah!" she said, handing the key to the room over. "I left the trunk in the room, but it might be better to leave this key in your keeping. I do not know how long it will take to repair the carriage. I've been instructed to make some purchases this morning in preparation for a soirée my mistress is attending tomorrow evening. I expect I will go straight back to the farmhouse afterwards to see how she is faring, but she may arrive here in my absence, if she is feeling well enough to travel today. Can you point me in the direction of the new market?"

Mrs Grindling dispensed some succinct directions, then enquired how long she should keep the room if Miss Crossley-Biggs should be delayed on account of her carriage or her health.

"Well," said Trudy, considering. "I've paid up for tonight. Keep the shilling I gave as surety for the barrow. I will come back by tomorrow at the latest, once I know better how things fare."

On returning to the vestibule, Trudy found it quite empty. The colonel had gone. Despite him being a complete stranger, she found herself feeling strangely disappointed.

* * *

**Footnotes**

AQIS—the Australian Quarantine Service

loperamide tablets—used to treat diarrhoea

"He's a nice gentleman, Colonel Fitzwilliam. There's not many of the gentry that would help a servant. And he's an earl's son too! It seems he's taken a liking to you lassie.

braw chiel—nice gentleman

Noo there's a guid hin' if ye coods gie oan tae it!—Now there's a good thing if you could get on to it!"

coothie—friendly


End file.
